


Stregheria

by Neffectual



Series: From An In-Ring Perspective [16]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Empath, M/M, References to Depression, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8338378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: Roman has always heard the whispers in his mind, and has always known that they seem to travel to the people around him, ever since he was little. Hearing a whole arena echo those dark little voices is harder than he ever believed.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kookieme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kookieme/gifts).



They’ve always been there, always been the undercurrent of something far deeper and far greater than just himself. He’s always heard them, from the smallest lone voice in the night to the roar of them on the voice of the crowd. He remembers his mother taking him aside and whispering softer, calmer words, things that he could almost hear over the rush of babble in his head, ‘ _stregone_ , _stregone_ ’, the catch in her throat when his father says he doesn’t just get it from her side of the family. It doesn’t stop the sounds, doesn’t stop the ripple in the world around him, but he feels better knowing that they can’t hear them too.

The hardest part is the crowd, now, the way they pick up on the whispers and use them to fill arenas with every dark cloud scudding across the surface of his thoughts, how they echo everything the whispers have told him for three score years, and bellow it back at him with the force of an angry mob. His mother calls and talks to him, trying to quiet down his mind, but he can still hear them, and she’s long ceased to have any effect on him.

There was a time when the voices weren’t so loud, when the whispers could be silenced with hands and mouths and three fists meeting in a gesture of friendship, brotherhood, and so much more. He’s never felt less dark that when he was the face of a dark league of three, when he was supposed to be scary and instead felt strong, celebrated, adored, enjoyed. He knew they loved him, and that made the whispers unimportant, made them go quiet, made them hush and stop them crawling under his skin to ruin everything. He worried so much that the way his demons played with Dean’s was going to end it all, drive them apart, that Seth wouldn’t cope with him, but they worked, they glued themselves back together every night, and if the whispers came, it was only when the two louder voices in the room were asleep, curled up against him, and the feel of their skin was enough to silence those from getting any louder.

The night Seth leaves, Roman barely feels the chair’s impact, barely feels the bruising of his ribs, because suddenly, those voices that have been so quiet for so long are roaring at him, the whisper turned from a trickle to a sound like a swarm of bees escaping their hive, and he knows he needs to stop listening, but Seth’s little curve of a smile was theirs, was pressed to his skin last night, and for the first time, Roman worries that his whispers to stop him hearing what someone else might be saying. After, Dean clings to him, saying something, words meant to incite revenge or to calm, Roman doesn’t know, because all he can hear is the whispers, getting louder and louder, and he cannot shut them out.

When he goes out to face the crowd, he can see it in their faces, can see that they’re reading the whispers, that they can hear them too, and they’re feeding off it. The first boo is quiet, in the darkness of his own head, but week after week they become louder and louder, they chase him across arenas, outside to the rental car, across state lines, through airports, and into bed every night, alone, because Dean isn’t going to keep up, isn’t going to stay. Dean is too easily influenced, and Roman is all ‘fluence right now, as his father would say, keeping some of his cousins away because he was projecting too strongly, and it would be upsetting to his mother to find them bashing her son’s skull in.

The title should be enough to quiet them down some, the whispers always seem to like it when he succeeds at something, when he has a grasp on power that they can twist and manipulate, when he can turn them into something stronger and darker than they could be on their own. But the boos roar around the arena, and he can’t help himself, his feet stumble, he starts to panic, because the whispers have done their work so strongly that he can’t manage to break free this time, even with success. It is a relief, almost, when Seth comes back, and when Dean takes the title, and then leaves with it, without looking back.

They don’t let him fight Seth, he knows why, his father making a call, his mother begging, because neither of them know how Seth used to read his whispers and weave his own words into them, how Seth used to chase the quiet into his mind and hold it there, pinning it down. If Roman is the worst sort of empath, the projecting type, Seth is the best sort, receptive and soft and his mind feels so safe that Roman wanted to run there even after Seth had dropped the both of them. Dean’s mind is loud and chaotic and bright, like a county fair in October, a little scary in dark corners, a little shady under the peeling paint of the stall awnings, but fun despite, or maybe because of that. Seth’s mind is regimented, brightly-lit, and Roman thought there was nowhere to hide in those open spaces and comfy couches, in the place where Seth made him feel good about himself for once, but Seth had hidden his plan in a binder, shelved carefully, and Roman had never gone looking, because he trusted him.

The first time Seth touches him outside of the nulling ropes of the ring, keeping talents from cheating and the _streghe_ from meddling, Roman can feel the rush of quiet roar over him, like the silence after a wave pushes you under the water, and you can only stare up at the roiling water and wait for it to pass before you break the surface. He shakes loose, and the sound slams into him with a blow so close to physical that he takes a step back, but Seth follows him, crowding him against a wall and kissing him, like it doesn’t matter if anyone can see, like it’s just something they do, like he’s not magically quieting Roman like he hasn’t been gone for two achingly long years.  Two years, two months, two weeks, two days, two hours, two minutes, two – Roman knows that spell, can feel the edges of it against his skin where Seth touches him, and wants to step back, wants to reject the gift, but can’t, the wall behind him pinning him steady, and he cannot push Seth away. He never could.

“By the power of two,” Seth whispers, when the kiss breaks, “your mind be clear.”

Sometimes, Roman forgets how strong a practitioner Seth is – he forgets the word Seth uses, something that starts with a k, he’s never been good with languages – but when he does something like this…. It won't last forever, but it will give him some time to learn to help himself.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Roman hisses back, but his head is so calm, so clear, and though he can hear the whispers, that’s all they are. “I was quiet enough with you.”

“You’ll be quieter without me,” Seth says, and Roman feels his heart break all over again, because he thought this was Seth coming back to him, thought this was his chance to have at least one lover back with him. “I’ll teach you to shield a bit better, maybe then we’ll try again. But depression projection is complicated, and if we’re gonna stick together? I want to know you’re okay if I have to let you go.”

Roman bites his lip, but nods.

In future, when he faces the crowd, there’s still boos, because far be it from a wrestling crowd to let go of an obnoxious habit just because it’s years out of date – just look at the ‘what’ chants and the guys still cheering for CM Punk if you need a reminder – but there are cheers, too, and for once, the whispers don’t cut through the cheers like they’re nothing, don’t make the boos louder. Seth hasn’t cured him, he’s not messed around in Roman’s brain chemistry, but he’s given him a measure of peace, for now, so he can learn not to project strongly enough that everyone in the building is mired in his misery before he even steps out of gorilla.

Roman smiles, hefts the US title, and listens to the cheers. They’re weak. But he is stronger.

**Author's Note:**

> All terms in italics, and the titles, are Italian, and taken from a witchvox post about Italian witchcraft and magic users. The word Roman can't remembe is 'kakhard', one of the words I could find for an Armenian practitioner, although it may be gendered incorrectly.


End file.
